INFORM

Delivering the Goods

Benefits of Reusable Shipping Containers

David Saphire
INFORM, Inc.
120 Wall Street
New York, NY 10005-4001
Tel 212 361-2400
Fax 212 361-2412
E-mail Inform@igc.apc.org

1994 by INFORM, Inc. All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

ISSN #1050-8953 Volume 3, Number 1

Printed on 50% recycled paper, with 15% post-consumer waste content

INFORM Special Reports cover the full range of environmental issues INFORM studies. This special report examines
the opportunities and obstacles involved in implementing one specific strategy for preventing the generation of
packaging waste: reusing shipping containers. Prepared by David Saphire, research associate in INFORM'S Sustain-
able Products and Practices Program, and edited by Sharene Azimi, it is being issued as part of INFORM'S ongoing re-
search and public education on the problems of solid waste generation and opportunities for businesses to reduce at
the source the amounts of waste they generate.

INFORM, Inc., is a nonprofit environmental research organization that examines business and municipal practices that
threaten our environment and public health; assesses changes business and government are making to improve their
performance; and identifies new business strategies and technologies moving the United States toward an environ-
mentally sustainable economy. INFORM's research currently focuses on strategies to reduce industrial and municipal
wastes and to preserve air and water quality.
Contents

Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v

I. Introduction: Why a Report on Reusable Shipping Containers ........................................... 1

Figure 1A: Categories of Products and Packaging in the 1990 US Municipal
Solid Waste Stream.. ............................................................................................................... 3
Figure 1B: Leading Categories of Packaging in the 1990 US Municipal Solid
Waste Stream .......................................................................................................................... 3
Figure 2: Shipments of Corrugated Boxes by End Use Industry, 1993 ................................. 4
Table 1: Comparison of the Number and Weight of One-Way and Reusable
Boxes Used to Make One Million Shipments ........................................................................ 5

II. Distribution Packaging Systems in the United States ............................................................ 5

Table 2: Lifetime Cost Comparison of One-Way and Reusable
2-cubic Foot Shipping Containers, by Material.. .................................................................... 6

III. Reusable Shipping Containers in Manufacturing Industries .................................................. 9

Case Study: Xerox Corporation ............................................................................................ 10
Case Study: Toyota USA ...................................................................................................... 13

IV. Case Studies in the Grocery and Supermarket Industry ....................................................... 16

Figure 3: IFCOs Deposit System.. ....................................................................................... 21

V. Policy Options that Promote Reuse ...................................................................................... 22

Table 3: Expanding Reuse of Shipping Containers .............................................................. 23

Notes ...................................................................... ....................................................................... 25

Company Contacts.. ...................................................................................................................... 27

Acknowledgments

This report has benefited from the insights and observations of a number of people. I would like to thank the individu-
als at Xerox Corp., Toyota USA, Wakefern Food Corp., Doms Empty Package Supply, Pepsi-Cola, Perstorp Xytec,
and Schoeller International who personally met with me, as well as all the other people mentioned in this report who
supplied INFORM with information about their companies operations.
A special note of thanks to John Okun of Long Island City Business Development Corp., Peter Larkin of the Food
Marketing Institute, Tom Kacandes of the New York State Department of Economic Development, and Michael Reilly
of Wakefern for reviewing the pre-publication manuscript and providing thoughtful comments.
At INFORM I wish to thank Joanna D. Underwood, president, for her support, and Dr. Warren R. Muir, senior fellow, for
reviewing the manuscript. Thanks also to researchers John Winter, Bette Fishbein, Jeff Hargrave, and Carolyn Nunley
for their insightful discussions on solid waste issues. Special thanks to Sharene Azimi for her precise editing and to
Mimi Bluestone, director of publications, for her editorial guidance. Thanks to Elisa Last, production coordinator, for
creating the graphics. Thanks also to former INFORM researcher Caroline Gelb for researching parts of this report.
INFORM thanks the many individuals and organizations without whose support our work would not be possible. In
particular, INFORM thanks the Risk Reduction Engineering Laboratory of the Office of Research and Development of
the US Environmental Protection Agency. Although the gathering of information in this document has been funded by
the US EPA, this report does not necessarily reflect the views of the Agency, and no official endorsement should be
inferred.
While this report benefited from the help of these and many other individuals, the contents and analysis are the sole
responsibility of INFORM.
I. Introduction: Why a Report on
Reusable Shipping Containers
A nyone who has ever moved from one home to
another has probably picked up some empty boxes
from the supermarket or liquor store for packing. Why
does there always seem to be a surplus of these boxes?
Because most corrugated containers are used commer-
cially only once.
These boxes form a significant portion of the US mu-
nicipal solid waste stream. Of the total 196 million tons
of municipal solid waste generated in 1990, packaging
represents nearly one-third, and packaging materials used
to transport goods make up nearly half of packaging
waste.
In 1990, US producers of corrugated boxes made 25 bil-
lion of them - almost 100 boxes for every person. Cor-
rugated boxes accounted for 12.2 percent of the national
municipal solid waste stream in 1990, contributing 24
million tons of waste, or about 188 pounds for every US
resident.
A dilemma that haunts the United States today is this:
what should be done with all of this solid waste? Incin-
eration is increasingly unpopular because of concern over
its environmental and public health effects. Recycling is
an important way of recognizing and recovering the value
of the natural resources contained within discarded prod-
ucts. But recycling does not address several crucial ques-
tions: Do we need all these boxes in the first place?
How much material does a packaging system need to
accomplish its purposes? How is it possible to reduce
the overall generation of waste?
Each portion of the waste stream requires its own waste
reduction solutions. Because packaging comprises such
a large segment of the total, any strategy that aims to
reduce packaging can have a significant impact on the
nations solid waste burden -a burden that includes not
only the cost and difficulties of managing wastes, but
one that reflects, as well, wasted materials and resources.
This report examines the opportunities and obstacles in-
volved in implementing one specific strategy for prevent-
ing the generation of packaging waste: reusing ship-
ping containers. Reusing containers can lead to dramatic
reductions in the generation of solid waste. As shown in
one hypothetical example, a company that makes ship-
ments in single-use corrugated boxes can cut the quan-
tity of container material needed for 1 million shipments
by 50 percent if it uses those boxes twice; by 70.6 per-
cent if it ships its products in reusable corrugated boxes
that can be used five times; and by 98.5 percent if it
switches from single-use corrugated boxes to plastic con-
tainers that can be used 250 times (see Table 1 on page
5). As the total weight of container material represents
the amount of material that, ultimately, must be recycled
or disposed of, these reductions can be quite significant.
Through a series of case studies, this report describes
settings in which companies currently reuse shipping
containers, obstacles to reuse, and options available to
both industry and government for expanding the use of
reusable containers.
By reviewing trade journals that cover the distribution
and packaging materials industries, INFORM identified a
number of companies that manufacture reusable ship-
ping containers, both in the United States and abroad,
and ultimately identified many US users of reusable ship-
ping containers, including the 10 companies described
in this study. Manufacturers, especially in the automo-
bile and the electrical and electronics industries, have
reused shipping containers since the mid-1980s. Food
producers traditionally have shipped some items, such
as bread and milk, in reusable crates. Major soft drink
bottlers in recent years have switched to reusable crates
for shipping some bottles directly to stores. And certain
other retail sectors are increasing their use of reusable
containers, especially for shipping goods from distribu-
tion centers to individual retail outlets.
Based on interviews and site visits, INFORM has prepared
case studies of two major manufacturers, Xerox Corpo-
ration and Toyota USA, and of various companies in the
grocery and supermarket industry that reuse shipping
containers. These case studies provide examples of how
reusable shipping container systems work. The case stud-
ies do not constitute a comprehensive survey of US com-
panies involved in reusing shipping containers, but the
systems profiled provide models for reuse that could be
replicated by other companies.
Findings
As shown in this reports case studies, reusing a con-
tainer means that less material is needed to manufacture
containers and, ultimately, that less material requires re-
cycling and disposal. Similarly, reuse of packaging can
save money for companies that either ship or receive
products.
Environmental benefits The primary environmental
benefits of reuse are:
1

Source reduction: Preventing waste
In recent years, national leaders from environmental
organizations, the United States Environmental Pro-
tection Agency (EPA), and business have all come to
agree that source reduction should be viewed as the
nations top waste policy option, followed by recy-
cling, waste-to-energy incineration, and landfilling.
INFORM defines source reduction as a reduction in the
amount and/or toxicity of materials entering the waste
stream prior to recycling, treatment, or disposal.
Source reduction applies to municipal solid waste and
to waste resulting from other stages of a products life
cycle, including raw materials extraction, processing,
and distribution.
Source reduction differs from recycling, which diverts
materials that have entered the waste stream and uses
them in place of virgin feedstocks to make other prod-
ucts. Source reduction instead prevents materials from
becoming part of the waste stream at all. Materials
that are discarded, whether recycled or not, require
costly and time-consuming collection, handling, and
processing in a materials or waste management sys-
tem. Source reduction reduces or eliminates the need
for this effort.
Besides preventing waste, source reduction conserves
resources. Reusing transport packaging reduces raw
materials use, avoids the need for energy to manufac-
ture or recycle containers, and reduces pollution aris-
ing from the manufacture or recycling of containers.
However, a reusable shipping container system may
require different transportation logistics than a one-
way (single-use) system and thus may entail different
levels of transportation energy use and related pollu-
tion. Moreover, a companys decision to use, for ex-
ample, plastic instead of corrugated cardboard con-
tainers, whether reusable or one-way, will have
different implications for the environment, affecting
the use of natural resources, the kinds and quantities
of pollutants that enter our air and water, and the use
of energy in making, transporting, and recycling those
packages.
This INFORM report has not attempted a life-cycle
analysis to determine the relative environmental ben-
efits of reusable versus one-way containers. Nor has
it attempted a cross-materials comparison of the life-
cycle impact of using reusable plastic versus one-way
or reusable corrugated cardboard. However, it does
identify opportunities for reducing solid waste and cut-
ting overall distribution costs through the reuse of ship-
ping containers.
2
l Waste prevention
l Resource conservation, including energy and raw
materials
Economic benefits Reuse provides savings by reducing
the cost of:
l Packaging
l Disposal
l Product damage due to shipping and handling
In addition, some companies report that they have found
additional long-term cost savings associated with imple-
menting a reusable container system, including reduced
costs of:
l Freight
l Labor and handling
l Storage2
Four features of reusable systems INFORM has identi-
fied four features (discussed in Section II) that are gen-
erally conducive to the reuse of shipping containers:
l Short distribution distances
l Frequent deliveries
l Small number of parties
l Company-owned or dedicated distribution vehicles
Five obstacles The report also identities five obstacles
to expanding the reuse of shipping containers:
l Large initial capital expense
l Cost of tracking and accounting for containers
l Cost of returning containers to points of origin
l Lack of storage space for empty containers
l Resistance to change on the part of suppliers, distribu-
tors, and customers3
Seven options that promote reuse The ease or diffi-
culty a company may encounter in reusing shipping con-
tainers will depend on the total distribution system
through which containers must pass and the total cost of
distribution, including the cost of packaging materials,
transportation, handling and labor, storage, and disposal,
recycling, or reuse. The report concludes (in Section V)
with an outline of government and industry options for
overcoming the above obstacles and facilitating reuse.
These options include:
l Third-party leasing of containers
l Industry-wide standardization
l Cooperative efforts between producers, suppliers,
customers, and distributors
l Designing containers to be easily stacked and stored
l Adopting more frequent and direct delivery systems
l Government-backed model programs, low-interest
loans, or tax credits
l Government procurement guidelines that favor reuse
 Figure 1A: Categories of Products and
Packaging in the 1990 US Municipal Solid
Waste Stream
Source for both pie charts: Franklin Associates, 1992
The three major packaging categories
Opportunities for reducing the amount of material used
in packaging systems vary, depending on the type of pack-
aging involved. Packaging falls into three categories,
which may overlap:
Primary or consumer packaging is the basic package
that contains a product (e.g., soup can, soda bottle, soap
powder box) and is used by the consumer until the prod-
uct is consumed. Primary packaging is designed to con-
tain and protect the product and to appeal to consumers
and stimulate product sales.
Secondary packaging is additional packaging designed
to facilitate self-service sales, to prevent theft, to further
advertise and market the product, or to facilitate use by
the consumer (e.g., toothpaste box, six-pack carrier).
Secondary packaging is generally discarded when the
product is opened.
Transport or distribution packaging is packaging used
to ship goods from their point of origin, such as a pro-
duction facility or farm, to their destination, (e.g., to a
manufacturer, wholesaler, retailer, or consumer). For dis-
tribution packaging, which includes boxes, crates, pal-
lets, banding, and void fill packaging (e.g., polystyrene
peanuts), the greatest emphasis is placed on protec-
tive, functional (handling, opening, closing), and ship-
ping considerations. The box or crate that physically con-
tains the product is often referred to as the shipping
container. Such a container may be designed for single
or multiple use.
Figure 1B: Leading Categories of
Packaging in the 1990 US Municipal Solid
Waste Stream
In the United States today, most shipping containers are
shipped in bulk units, called unitized loads, in which a
number of small containers are stacked onto a pallet or
slipsheet, secured with shrinkwrap or banding, and loaded
and unloaded onto transport vehicles by mechanical han-
dling equipment such as forklift trucks or cranes. (Pal-
lets are portable platforms, typically made of wood or
plastic, used for storage or movement of materials and
packages in warehouses, factories, and transport vehicles.
Slipsheets are thin paper or plastic sheets with protrud-
ing tabs that replace pallets for stacking and moving con-
tainers.)
Corrugated shipping containers: A
significant portion of the waste stream
As shown in Figures 1A and lB, corrugated cardboard
containers make up the largest category of packaging
waste. In 1990, an estimated 90 to 95 percent of all US
manufactured consumer, wholesale, and industrial goods
were shipped in corrugated boxes. Adding wood pack-
aging (primarily wooden pallets and crates) brings the
contribution of transport packaging to more than 16 per-
cent of the total national municipal solid waste stream.
The contribution of corrugated boxes as a percentage of
the national municipal solid waste stream, by weight, has
increased steadily, from 8.3 percent in 1960 to 12.2 per-
cent in 1990. Recycling of corrugated packaging has also
risen. In 1990,48 percent of all corrugated packaging in
the US waste stream was recovered for recycling. None-
3
 Figure 2: Shipments of Corrugated Boxes by End Use Industry, 1993*
Durable and Nondurable Goods
* Percentage of shipment by Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) of Corrugated Customers
Source: Fibre Box Association, 1993 Annual Report
theless, 12.5 million tons still required disposal in 1990,
up from 4.8 million tons in 1960. The Environmental
Industry Association (formerly the National Solid Waste
Management Association) estimated in 1992 that the cost
of recycling corrugated cardboard was $43 per ton, not
including collection or transportation4
Recycling of wooden packaging (pallets and boxes) in
the past has been negligible. However, it appears that the
contribution of wooden packaging to US landfills will
decline, with landfill restrictions in many parts of the
country spurring greater reuse and recycling efforts such
as pallet reconditioning and exchange.
Todays leading shipping container: The
corrugated cardboard box
Corrugated cardboard, a paper product, is valued in dis-
tribution packaging for its light weight, strength, and low
cost. Corrugated boxes are used primarily as transport
packaging. In general, they do not come in direct contact
with consumer products in the way that primary or sec-
ondary packages do. Corrugated boxes instead serve the
purpose of holding together units of product, a function
called unitizing, for protection and easy distribution.
4
Figure 2 shows the major users, by industry sector, of
corrugated boxes in the United States in 1993. The food
and beverage industry (producers of fresh fruits and veg-
etables, meat, dairy products, canned and preserved
goods, bakery products, and confectionery supplies) led
in the use of corrugated containers. The food and bever-
age industrys role as a user of corrugated boxes in the
United States rose between 1972 and 1990 from 28 per-
cent of all corrugated containers to 38.8 percent.5
Source reduction options for shipping
containers
There are at least four ways to reduce transport packag-
ing at its source:6
l Lightweighting Reducing the amount of material used
in a container made of a specific material without
compromising the containers strength, for example,
by thinning the wall of a corrugated container.
l Selecting another material Reducing the amount of
material used to transport products by replacing pack-
aging made of one material with packaging made of a
smaller quantity of another material, for example, by
delivering soup cans in corrugated trays covered with
shrinkwrap instead of in corrugated boxes.
 Table 1: Comparing number of boxes, weight of box, and total weight of box
material used to make 1 million shipments of equal volume in one-way and
reusable corrugated boxes and reusable plastic boxes
Number of
Box material boxes used for 1 million
and number of times used shipments (thousands)
One-way corrugated, one time 1,000
One-way corrugated, two times 500
Reusable corrugated, five times 200
Reusable plastic, 250 times 4 5.5
SOURCE: INFORM
Bulk packaging Packing products in larger contain-
ers to reduce the amount of packaging per product
being shipped, for example, by switching from indi-
vidual bags of flour to silos.
Switching from single-use to reusable containers
This report examines opportunities for employing reus-
able shipping containers as an alternative to single-use
transport packaging.7
Reusable shipping containers
Whether reusable containers are made of corrugated card-
board or of other materials, such as plastic, reuse pro-
vides opportunities to reduce the amount of material used
to ship goods and to reduce the amount of material en-
tering the waste stream. For example, over the course of
its lifetime, a 2-cubic foot plastic reusable shipping con-
tainer weighing 5.5 pounds and making 250 trips will
replace 250 1.5-pound single-use corrugated boxes
weighing a total of 375 pounds8The single-use container
will generate 98.5 percent more waste measured in weight
than the reusable container (5.5 pounds versus 375
pounds).
This kind of reduction can be quite significant for a com-
pany that uses large numbers of boxes. As shown in Table
1, a hypothetical company that makes 1 million ship-
ments in a year could cut the total weight of box material
used per million shipments 50 percent if it uses those
boxes twice and by 70.6 percent if it switched to heavier
corrugated boxes that could be used five times instead of
once. The same company could reduce the total weight
of box material by 98.5 percent if it changed from single-
use corrugated boxes to plastic containers that can be
used 250 times9 The total weight of box material is sig-
Total weight of box
Weight of box material used
(pounds) per million shipments (tons)
1.5 750
1.5 375
2.2 220
11
nificant because it indicates the amount of material that,
ultimately, must be recycled or disposed of.
II. Distribution Packaging Systems in
the United States
A part from reducing waste generation, reusing
shipping containers can lower a companys pack-
aging costs. As seen in Table 2, which compares the cost
of three types of shipping containers, the initial cost of a
single-use corrugated container is 95.2 percent less than
the initial cost of a reusable plastic container. However,
if the plastic container is used 250 times, the reusable
container costs 91.7 percent less per use than the single-
use corrugated container.
However, the cost of packaging is not the only consider-
ation in choosing between single-use and reusable trans-
port packaging. A number of activities make up the dis-
tribution system for various products, and besides
containing and protecting products, shipping containers
must be designed to be compatible with the entire sys-
tem through which they will pass. According to Charles
W. Ebling, president of Logistics Support Systems in
Westville, Connecticut, purchasing managers consider the
total value of goods or materials in deciding what to spend
on packaging. They research the potential sources for
raw materials and supplies and evaluate total procure-
ment costs, which include packaging, storage, handling,
and shipping. lo
Ebling cautions that choosing the least costly packaging
material or container does not necessarily result in the
5
 Table 2: Lifetime Cost Comparison of One- Way and Reusable
2-cubic Foot Shipping Containers, by Material
Corrugated One-way
Weight (pounds)
Initial cost 1.5
Estimated life (number of trips)
Cost per trip (average) $0.53
Source: How to Select Shipping Containers, Buckhorn, Inc., Milford, Ohio, 1991
lowest overall physical distribution costs. Whether single-
use or reusable packaging is used, a number of other fac-
tors affect cost, including the type of packaging used,
the type of material, handling and labor, shipping
(freight), storage, and disposal or reuse costs.
Costs in a packaging system
Material costs
The cost of materials used in a packaging system varies
widely and depends on the products protective and mar-
keting requirements. With some products, for which no
merchandising considerations enter into the selection of
the package (such as parts for automobile manufactur-
ing), the packaging cost is usually based on the level of
protection desired for the product. The cost of transport
packaging for expensive electronic components, for ex-
ample, may represent a small fraction of the product cost.
The packaging cost for shipments of cement, on the other
hand, may be much greater relative to the product cost.
The level of protection for cement may be set to antici-
pate a certain percentage of product loss in shipment
because the cost of replacing this loss may be less than
the cost of improving packaging to provide full protec-
tion.
Handling and labor costs
The process of shipping goods may involve the partici-
pation of many parties at different points. Therefore, ship-
ping containers must be compatible with a variety of
handling methods and equipment. For example, in ship-
ping automobile parts from supplier to manufacturer,
individual containers holding parts should be compat-
ible with the handling methods and equipment involved
in the following procedures:
6
Corrugated Reusable Plastic Reusable
2.2 5.5
$1.06 $11.03
5 250
$0.21 $0.044
Packing containers
Placing individual containers into bulk units on pal-
lets or slipsheets
Moving unitized loads to shipping docks
Loading and unloading trucks
Transporting unit loads from shipping docks to stor-
age or assembly areas
Fitting individual containers onto assembly line equip-
ment
A change in handling to accommodate new container
types may add to the cost of shipping, storage, and dis-
posal or return of containers.
Shipping (freight) costs
Cost-efficient transportation requires optimum utiliza-
tion of available space (known as cube efficiency) in-
side transport vehicles, without exceeding highway
weight limits. The shape and size of containers and pal-
lets, as well as how they are loaded into position in trans-
port vehicles (trucks, rail cars, cargo ship containers),
will determine how much of the available space is used.
To be cost-efficient, individual containers and unitized
loads should conform to the interior dimensions of the
transport vehicle.
For example, if the width of a trailer is 90 inches, then
the width of a pallet used in that vehicle should be 45
inches, not 50 inches. This will allow for two pallet loads
to be placed across the width of the truck. By the same
measure, individual containers should conform to the
dimensions of the pallet to maximize the number of con-
tainers that can be placed on that pallet. If containers are
stackable, pallet loads can be built higher, taking advan-
tage of interior space. This will allow for the shipment
of more product per delivery.
Storage costs
As is the case with shipping, cost-efficient storage de-
pends on the dimensions and stackability of bulk units to
maximize available warehouse or storage space.
Disposal or return costs
Even after materials or goods have been delivered and
unloaded, single-use and reusable packaging entail dif-
ferent costs. Single-use container systems entail handling
and labor costs related to recycling or disposal, includ-
ing: special handling equipment (compactors and bail-
ers); material pickup and disposal; and labor to sort and
place items in appropriate waste containers, compactors,
or bailers.
Reusable containers entail a different set of costs associ-
ated with the return of containers to their point of origin,
including: administrative costs for managing and con-
trolling the flow of full and empty containers; the cost of
labor needed to put empty containers back on pallets for
return shipments (restaging); the freight cost of haul-
ing back empty containers; and the cost of cleaning and
repairing containers.
Other considerations in reusing shipping
containers
Once a company opts for reusable containers, there are a
number of design features that can lead to further cost
savings and logistical benefits. For example, standard-
ization of container sizes may help increase transporta-
tion efficiency. However, one-way containers could be
standardized as well.
Shipping containers are generally designed to fit into an
existing distribution system. However, in some cases the
potential to save by changing packaging may be great
enough to justify changing the distribution system
through which it passes. In other cases, reusable con-
tainer systems are planned in the context of larger changes
in shipping and receiving. The Xerox Corporation case
study in this report describes this type of change.
The time period over which a reusable shipping container
is functional - its useful life - affects its total mate-
rial cost. Reusable containers may cost 2-to-20 times as
much as one-way containers, so the number of times the
container is reused (its trippage) is a crucial variable in
calculating total material cost. In addition to anticipat-
ing the number of trips a container will make, it is im-
portant to establish the number of containers (the float)
that will be needed at the outset and at any given time.
Investing in a float of reusable containers requires a much
larger initial investment than would be needed to buy
one-way containers. Not only must capital be available,
but a system must be in place to guarantee the return of
empty containers.
Features of systems compatible with
reusable shipping containers
Reusable shipping containers generally work best when
the following features are present. These features may
overlap:
Short distribution distances Shorter distances mean
lower back-hauling costs. Shorter distances also ex-
pedite the return of containers to suppliers.
Frequent deliveries Frequent deliveries usually mean
that inventory turns over rapidly, which means that
empty boxes are available for collection at the time
of delivery. This makes it possible to collect empty
containers with each delivery, minimizing the num-
ber of containers in storage and transport and mini-
mizing the size of the float of containers that a com-
pany must purchase and maintain.
Small number of parties Controlling the return of
empty containers is easier when the number of par-
ties handling containers is small, for example, when a
bakery delivers directly to a grocery store without in-
termediate storage in a warehouse.
Company-owned vehicles If companies involved in
shipping and receiving use company-owned vehicles
there is typically no charge for return shipping, espe-
cially if trucks would otherwise return empty to their
point of origin after making a delivery. Producers may
also work with trucking companies that have dedi-
cated all or part of their fleet to making deliveries to
or from a single customer.
The features just described generally are found in closed-
loop distribution systems, including inter-plant shipping
of materials from one part of a company to another. In
general, closed-loop systems are systems in which the
container always goes back to the same point of origin,
passing through the same gateways. Most of the time, it
is possible to account for the containers location within
the loop. However, as described later in this report, large,
multi-plant operations such as Xerox, which ship or re-
ceive supplies over long distances, may find it more ef-
fective to use an open-loop system in which contain-
ers need not return to their point of origin. In addition,
7
reusable shipping containers may also work well in open-
loop systems in which containers are managed by third-
party logistical service contractors.
Physical properties of reusable shipping
containers
Reusable shipping containers may be made from a num-
ber of different materials, including corrugated cardboard,
fiberboard, plastic (such as high density polyethylene
[HDPE] or polypropylene), wood, and steel. The choice
of material influences the number of times the container
may be used and ultimately its cost per use (as shown in
Table 2), as well as the amount of material that ultimately
is discarded.
Reusable containers of all materials may be designed with
a number of features that facilitate shipping, handling,
and storage, including:
l Collapsibility The walls of the container are designed
to fold down when collapsed.
l Nestability Empty containers can easily be placed into
one another.
l Stackability Tops and bottoms are designed to lock
into one another to allow for greater stacking heights.
The first two features allow for a reduction in the space
empty containers take up in transportation and storage
and allow for more containers to be hauled back than
were delivered full. (Collapsed containers may use 3-to-
6 times less space than assembled containers.)
Stackability makes it possible to make maximum use of
the full height of space in warehouses or delivery ve-
hicles.12
Collapsibility, nestability, and stackability may not be
suitable under all circumstances. For example, many of
Toyota USAs suppliers ship parts to Toyota in reusable
shipping containers that hold reusable dunnage (cush-
ioning or padding used to protect fragile parts against
shock or breakage). The dunnage is returned to suppliers
inside the empty containers, precluding the use of col-
lapsible containers. Toyota also ruled out nestable con-
tainers. Nestable containers have drafted (slanted) walls
that allow them to fit together and pull apart easily, but
they may hold less than straight-walled containers, which
cannot be nested. Thus there is a trade-off between the
amount of product being shipped per delivery versus the
number of empty containers that can be back-hauled at.
one time.13
Other features that affect shipping, handling, and stor-
age include:
8
Lids Lids may be separate from or attached to the
body of the container. Separate lids facilitate access
to the container interior, while attached lids may save
time in handling.
Side Access Some containers feature side doors that
drop down for unloading parts from stacked contain-
ers. This allows workers to randomly select parts for
quality control without disturbing the stack.
Solid vs. lattice-work walls and bottoms Solid walls
are best to hold bulk shipments (such as liquids, pow-
der, grain, or chemicals) and to keep out contaminants.
Lattice-work or open walls or bottoms permit drain-
age or allow air to circulate through the container (for
example, for produce or food packed on ice).
Size The size of a shipping container depends in part
on whether the container will be handled manually or
mechanically. Containers may range in size from l-
cubic foot totes designed to be handled manually (such
as on assembly lines or in supermarkets) to 80-cubic
foot bins used to ship bulk ingredients. Some bulk
bins are designed with a pallet-like bottom to allow
for forklift access, thereby eliminating the need for a
pallet.
Reusable shipping containers in two
retail operations
While single-use corrugated boxes are the leading trans-
port package in the United States, a number of industries
have opted for reusable shipping containers in their op-
erations. Besides the manufacturing and supermarket
industries described in the case-study section of this re-
port, certain retail sectors are also increasing their reuse
of containers for shipments from distribution centers to
individual stores, especially for fast food, health and
beauty aids, clothing, and pharmaceuticals. Bergen Brun-
swig Drug Company and In-N-Out Burger are compa-
nies in two of these fields that are using reusable con-
tainers to ship from central facilities to retail outlets.
Pharmaceuticals: Bergen Brunswig Drug
Company
In 1987, the Bergen Brunswig Drug Company in Orange,
California, purchased 120,000 returnable plastic contain-
ers to replace one-way corrugated cartons. The company
ships from its 37 distribution centers to its 10,000 phar-
macies, located in 40 states.
Brunswig reports that the elimination of carton assem-
bly and manual taping operations has enabled the com-
pany to save money on packaging and labor. Other sav-
ings include conservation of warehouse space (corrugated
cartons were once assembled on the warehouse floor);
better truck space utilization with the new containers,
which stack to completely fill the 8-foot height of the
companys box van; reduced damage to merchandise; and
a reduction in trash. The plastic containers also fit better
into Brunswigs new automated distribution centers,
where automated power conveyors would crush corru-
gated boxes.14
Fast Food: In-N-Out Burger
In-N-Out Burger in Baldwin Park, California, switched
from one-way waxed corrugated boxes to reusable plas-
tic totes for shipping meat patties and bags of dressing
from its processing facilities to its 84 stores in and near
southern California. The company reports that eliminat-
ing 200 tons of nonrecyclable waxed cardboard annu-
ally has led to an estimated $24,000 in savings on dis-
posal and packaging. In-N-Out recovered the initial
$140,000 cost of the totes during the first 11 months of
use.15
A manufacturer of reusable shipping
containers
A number of companies in the United States manufac-
ture reusable shipping containers. One company, Perstorp
Xytec (formerly Xytec) in Tacoma, Washington, intro-
duced the first large, solid-wall plastic bins to the US
market in 1973.16 The bins were designed for the agri-
cultural and fishing industries as an alternative to wooden
and steel containers. In the mid-1980s Perstorp Xytec
began designing specialized reusable container systems,
such as the first collapsible plastic container in the United
States, for major automobile manufacturers, including
General Motors and Ford. Other customers in the auto
industry include Chrysler, Honda, and Volkswagen as
well as some of the suppliers to these automakers.
Other Perstorp Xytec customers include the fishing, ag-
riculture, utilities, and transportation industries and con-
sumer markets. One segment of its market involves
maquiladoras (twin plants) that use reusable contain-
ers to ship materials across the US-Mexican border.
Johnson & Johnson is one such customer: it ships pre-
cut surgical garments from Texas to be sewn in Mexico,
where labor is significantly cheaper.
According to Perstorp Xytec, reusable shipping contain-
ers are used most frequently by its customers for distri-
bution between vendors (suppliers) and manufacturers
and between sub-suppliers and suppliers. Perstorp Xytec
offers its customers a free cost justification service for
companies interested in switching to reusable contain-
ers. In this cost analysis Perstorp Xytec computes a
customers potential savings in the areas of transporta-
tion, container cost, product damage, storage, and dis-
posal. Perstorp Xytec and other manufacturers of reus-
able shipping containers also rent or lease their containers
for a trial period to allow companies to test the benefits
of a reusable shipping container system.
III. Reusable Shipping Containers in
Manufacturing Industries
I n the United States, a number of manufacturers
of automobiles, electronic goods, and appliances have
worked with their suppliers to develop systems in which
the suppliers ship parts in reusable containers. The auto-
mobile industry in particular and the manufacturing sec-
tor in general lend themselves to reusable packaging be-
cause parts are delivered frequently, often over short
distribution distances. For example, many suppliers to
the auto industry are located in and around Detroit-area
auto assembly plants.
Just-in-time delivery systems
complement reuse
The development of just-in-time delivery systems has
helped spur the use of reusable shipping containers in
manufacturing, especially in the automobile industry.
Just-in-time (JIT) is a delivery strategy that manufactur-
ers use to reduce the quantity of supplies kept in inven-
tory. Instead of making infrequent deliveries of large
volumes of parts that are inventoried over long periods
of time, suppliers make smaller deliveries on an as-needed
basis.
One JIT operational technique is to bypass traditional
central receiving facilities by delivering inbound mate-
rials as needed directly to the point of use on the produc-
tion line. This results in faster turnover of materials and
a reduction in product inventory. Less inventory means
that warehouse space previously used to store parts can
now be used for production or other purposes. JIT sys-
tems appear to work best when vendors are located near
manufacturing facilities; when the number of participants,
including vendors and carriers, is limited; and when these
9
participants are committed to working together over a
long period of time.
Reusable container systems are compatible with JIT pro-
grams because containers can be moved into production
facilities and then, almost immediately, moved out again.
This means suppliers can maintain smaller numbers of
containers. Working with fewer dedicated companies
facilitates control and administration of empty contain-
ers, especially if companies use proprietary containers.
For example, a dedicated trucking company may serve
just one customer or dedicate some portion of its truck-
ing fleet to serving only that customer.
INFORM'S research shows that reusable shipping contain-
ers have saved manufacturers and suppliers money in
the following areas:
Reduced packaging costs As the cost of reusable
shipping containers is amortized over their useful life,
the cost per trip is lowered, making reusable contain-
ers cheaper than single-use packaging. This results in
savings, either for manufacturers, if they have tradi-
tionally supplied vendors with containers, or for ven-
dors, if they are responsible for purchasing contain-
ers. Vendors elimination of one-way packaging and
subsequent long-term savings may result in a lower
per-piece price for parts shipped.
Reduced damage Reusable containers are usually
sturdier than one-way containers because they are
designed to withstand multiple uses, and switching to
reusable containers can result in lower rates of dam-
age of incoming supplies.
Avoided disposal costs Eliminating one-way contain-
ers also eliminates the need to landfill or recycle them.
In addition, production, distribution, and productivity
improvement systems, such as just-in-time delivery, that
complement reusable shipping container systems may
lead to other savings such as:
l Reduced labor costs Freeing workers from the task
of breaking down single-use corrugated containers and
removing them from assembly-line operations can
offer savings. Standardizing containers to conform
with assembly-line layouts can eliminate the need for
labor to repack incoming supplies into containers com-
patible with the assembly line.
l Reduced storage costs Reusable shipping contain-
ers may stack to higher heights than one-way corru-
gated containers, taking full advantage of available
warehouse space. Just-in-time delivery in reusable
shipping containers may allow companies to use ware-
house space previously used for storing inventory for
other purposes.
10
l Reduced freight costs The switch to standardized
containers may allow for greater utilization of space
inside trucks, resulting in more shipments per deliv-
ery and thereby reducing freight costs. These savings
are often greater than the cost of back-hauling empty
containers.
The benefits of standardized containers on the assembly
line are described in the case studies that follow of Xerox
Corporation and Toyota Motor Manufacturing USAInc.
These companies have followed two different strategies
for implementing and enhancing reusable shipping con-
tainer programs.
CASE STUDY: Xerox Corporation
Xerox has switched from a system that used thousands
of different size one-way shipping containers to a sys-
tem that relies on nine different standard reusable corru-
gated package sizes. By developing standardized, reus-
able shipping containers, Xerox has created a distribution
system in which any of its facilities or suppliers world-
wide can reuse the same boxes.17
The key features of Xeroxs distribution system are:
l Standardized containers and long-distance supply
Xerox requires suppliers to use standardized contain-
ers worldwide.
. Open-loop network Xerox operates an open-
loop distribution network in which containers need
not return to their point of origin.
l Third-party collection A third-party handler collects,
sorts, and resells empty containers where they are
needed, eliminating the need to haul containers back
to their point of origin.
l Just-in-time Xeroxs system is compatible with just-
in-time delivery.
l Savings Reuse has enabled the company to save on
packaging, disposal, and other costs.
Background: Inefficient use of
containers
Xerox Corporation is a multinational producer of copi-
ers, printers, facsimile machines, computer software, and
other electronic products that are sold in over 130 coun-
tries. The company has major manufacturing facilities
in the United States, Canada, England, Holland, France,
Japan, and Mexico and in South America.
In recent years, international competition has led Xerox
to reevaluate its worldwide operations and costs. Xerox
looked for the potential for change and savings in many
facets of its operations, including its supplier packaging
program. Beginning at its manufacturing and research
facilities in Webster, New York, the company examined
how supplier parts were being shipped to its facilities
worldwide and ultimately instituted the worldwide stan-
dardization of the packaging used to ship Xerox compo-
nent parts.
The Webster facility receives component parts from more
than 400 suppliers. While the company has been work-
ing to localize its supplier base, it still receives many
types of parts from Europe and Japan. In the past, each
component shipped to Xerox was packaged in a box
unique to that part. This resulted in the shipment of thou-
sands of different types of boxes with as many as 24 dif-
ferent pallet sizes. The use of non-standard packaging
resulted in a number of inefficiencies and costs that in-
cluded:
Waste disposal costs Because different suppliers used
a variety of different packages, these packages and
pallets reached a dead end as soon as parts were
delivered to Xerox plants - that is, Xerox was not
able to reuse them. Xerox reported spending over
$500,000 to send more than 4 million boxes to land-
fills each year.18
Operational costs Xerox often had to repack incom-
ing component parts into new boxes that fit onto racks
in its assembly-line operations. Also, unit loads of
boxes sometimes required repalletization for move-
ment within the plant.
Packaging costs Worldwide, Xerox had to spend $100
million annually on new corrugated boxes and pallets
for its shipments of supplier parts and finished goods.
This was because the diversity of the old incoming
boxes, many of them unique to the parts they carried,
made it impossible for Xerox to reuse them to ship
parts between plants or to repair centers.
Inefficient use of freight The use of boxes and pal-
lets of many different sizes prevented Xeroxs sup-
pliers from fully utilizing the space of transport ve-
hicles. Since Xerox pays the cost of shipping from its
suppliers, this led to freight costs that were higher than
necessary.
In seeking solutions for these problems, Xerox saw great
opportunities for change in its distribution packaging
system, not only at the Webster facility, but worldwide.
Planning Xerox began developing its box reuse pro-
gram (called the 88P311 Supplier Packaging Program)
in April 1989. The company brought together packaging
engineers from Xerox and its international suppliers to
achieve a consensus on box style and to help make boxes
consistent from country to country. Quality control en-
gineers, parts buyers, line engineers, assembly-line work-
ers, suppliers, and box makers took part in the planning
process, and senior manufacturing management gave its
final approval.
Standard boxes and pallets The core of the program
consisted of designing nine standard corrugated card-
board boxes of different sizes and two standard wood
pallet sizes that suppliers must use for shipping compo-
nent parts to Xerox. Xerox makes exceptions where
weight, size, or safety pose limitations. The standard-
ized corrugated boxes and pallets can be used at any
Xerox facility and are designed to fit directly into desig-
nated positions on the assembly line. According to Xerox,
With the use of standard containers, assembly line lay-
out and storage rack compatibility within all Xerox fa-
cilities worldwide will be ensured. 19
New delivery schedules Besides changing the boxes
and pallets, Xerox also reworked its delivery schedules.
Previously, large quantities of parts were delivered on a
weekly-to-monthly basis and put into inventory at on-
site warehouses. To replace this system, Xerox devel-
oped a just-in-time inventory program based on direct
deliveries to assembly-line operations on an as-needed
basis. Deliveries are now made on a daily or weekly ba-
sis, minimizing the amount of storage and warehouse
space Xerox needs.
Xerox also introduced scanners and a uniform bar code
labeling system to speed up the throughput of incoming
supplies and to reduce errors and invoicing time. (Bar
codes are electronic labels that replace paper invoices
and that contain such information as the contents of the
package, name of supplier, date, etc. Uniform bar codes
could also be used with one-way boxes.)
Distribution and third parties Under the new distri-
bution system, as incoming shipments of supplier parts
are received and used in assembly-line operations, boxes
are collapsed and stacked. Xerox then either uses them
in its internal pipeline to ship subcomponent parts to
other Xerox facilities or repair centers, or returns them
to third-party box distributors who sort and resell them
to Xerox suppliers.
Xerox uses three box distributors in the United States,
one on each coast and another in the Midwest. Boxes
shipped from overseas enter one of the three US distri-
bution loops once they are unpacked. A box shipped from
Europe or Idaho to New York, for example, enters the
east coast distribution loop.
11
On the east coast, Xerox contracts with H.P. Neun Com-
pany, Inc., a private manufacturer of corrugated and set-
up boxes located in Fairport, New York, a few miles from
Xeroxs Webster facility. In the past, Xerox had purchased
its own new boxes from Neun. Under contract agree-
ments, Neun now sells both new and used boxes to
Xeroxs suppliers at a set rate. Neun buys the new boxes
from the Jefferson Smurfit Company in Chicago, Illi-
nois, at a price negotiated by Xerox. New boxes cost an
average of $0.50 per box for 10,000 boxes. Neun in turn
sells the boxes, whether new or used, to Xerox suppliers
at an average cost of $1.00 per box. (Actual box costs
for suppliers range from $0.19 to $14, depending on box
type.) The boxes average eight uses. Neun recycles boxes
that are too dirty (e.g., greasy) or damaged beyond re-
pair.
Neun has 10 full-time employees responsible for han-
dling returned boxes. They remove or cross out bar-code
labels from the used boxes, put boxes needing repair into
a repair bin, and separate for recycling those boxes that
are no longer useful. Boxes to be used again are shrink-
wrapped or banded and sent out to suppliers. Since they
are standardized, the reused boxes do not necessarily go
back to the same supplier.
According to Robert R. Vannozzi, packaging commod-
ity team contracting specialist at Xerox, Xerox chose to
work with a third party rather than working directly with
suppliers to return boxes because of existing logistics.
Xeroxs distribution loops were already in place, and
changing them to require suppliers to haul back empty
containers would have been very difficult: many of
Xeroxs suppliers are located far away and use common
carriers to deliver parts. On the other hand, Vannozzi says
that a company just starting operations would be able to
develop its distribution system from scratch, with dedi-
cated carriers and back-hauling in mind.
Cost is another reason for using third-party companies.
Neun can do things cheaper than Xerox because its labor
and overhead costs are lower. For example, Neun em-
ployees are paid $8-10 per hour to handle box returns.20
Employees doing the same work at Xerox might be paid
$12- 15 per hour. Neun provides similar services for other
companies, including General Motors.
According to Vannozzi, Neun works well with Xerox
because of its proximity. The program would be much
more expensive to operate if the third party were further
away. Xerox works with another third-party company to
handle returns of its standardized pallets.
Working with suppliers Xerox worked closely with its
suppliers in implementing the standardized packaging
12
program. Xerox developed a Supplier Packaging Agree-
ment Form that specifies how parts should be delivered
to Xerox facilities and describes under what circum-
stances exemptions are allowed. Xerox also developed a
videotape for suppliers that explains the program in de-
tail. Xerox helped suppliers defray some costs by sup-
plying free software for using the new bar-code system.
For some suppliers, the switch to standardized packag-
ing meant an increase in packaging costs, especially if
they had been using lighter weight corrugated boxes. In
some instances, suppliers passed the higher cost of pack-
aging along to Xerox in the form of increased prices per
part. On the other hand, suppliers that were already us-
ing more expensive, better quality corrugated boxes are
now getting boxes of similar quality for less money. This
is because H.P. Neun is able to buy them at lower rates
due to the economy of scale in making large purchases.
According to James E. Baxter, Jr., manager of technical
services, Xerox had to promote its standardized packag-
ing program to suppliers worldwide. A large company
such as Xerox may find this a relatively easy thing to do,
since in many cases its purchases represent a major por-
tion of its suppliers sales. Where this is not the case -
for example, Xerox might represent only 1 percent of a
screw manufacturers business - getting suppliers to
switch to standardized packaging may be more difficult.
Savings
Xeroxs Jim Baxter conservatively estimates that the new
packaging program saves Xeroxs manufacturing facili-
ties between $2-5 million annually.21 While Xerox did
not provide INFORM with a breakdown of its actual costs
and savings, the company did describe six areas in which
is seeing or expects to see savings:
Reduced freight costs Standard sized boxes and pal-
lets cube out cargo ship containers and trailers more
efficiently, allowing Xerox to pay lower freight costs.
Reduced damage According to Xeroxs Jim Baxter,
the new boxes offer better protection and have resulted
in a significant reduction in damage to incoming parts.
Avoided disposal costs Xerox estimates that 60-80
percent of all incoming parts can be handled with the
new system, eliminating the need for 2.4-3.2 million
boxes and millions of pallets annually at its Webster
facility alone.22 According to Vannozzi, the company
has saved $1.5 million in avoided pallet disposal costs
since 1990.
Reduced packaging costs Xerox does not have to
buy as many boxes for shipping between its plants,
and using standard container sizes allows for a large
 leveraged purchase contract with the box manufac-
turers.
. Reduced labor costs The uniform bar-code system
has enhanced the accuracy of Xeroxs materials track-
ing and receiving, leading to reduced labor needed
for handling and administration. Xerox has also re-
duced its labor costs because workers do not have to
repack parts into boxes compatible with assembly-
line operations.
. Reduced storage costs Xeroxs Supplier Packaging
Program and just-in-time delivery system has enabled
Xerox to reduce its packaging inventory and reduce
warehouse space, allowing the company to use this
space for other purposes. Suppliers have also realized
savings from reduced packaging inventory.
A ro/e for plastic reusable shipping
containers
According to Jim Baxter, the current packaging program
is an intermediate step toward Xeroxs long-term goal of
localizing its supplier base and using reusable plastic
containers in a closed-loop distribution system. Baxter
indicates that Xerox initially chose reusable corrugated
boxes because they are cheaper than reusable plastic.
According to Baxter, the initial cost of buying plastic
containers was too high to justify before the whole dis-
tribution system has been worked out.
Bob Vannozzi says that plastic containers, which would
last longer than the corrugated boxes now in use, are more
practical when suppliers are mostly local and where there
is a tightly closed distribution loop. Controlling the loop
is a major problem, says Vannozzi. The boxes are sub-
ject to theft because they are of such good quality, but
closed-loop distribution helps to minimize this risk.
Hybrid system? According to Baxter, Xerox might even-
tually develop a hybrid system in which reusable plastic
containers are used with local suppliers and reusable
corrugated containers with long-distance suppliers. Lo-
calized supply has other advantages besides better con-
trol over containers, says Baxter. While parts ordered
from overseas may be cheaper, they include many hid-
den expenses, such as: the cost of long distance phone
bills and air freight; little flexibility in distribution fre-
quency and inventory; and quality control problems. In
other words, the cost of dealing with a distant supplier
may lead to higher overall costs. According to Baxter,
in the end it boils down to price per piece versus total
acquisition costs.
Other goals
Standard dunnage Xerox has worked to remove the
expandable polystyrene dunnage used in boxes to pro-
tect parts and to replace it with corrugated cardboard,
which is more easily recyclable. However, with the new
standardized box system, suppliers may have to insert
more dunnage than before to secure their products, and
this may be more expensive than the box itself. The dun-
nage inserts are not standardized and are typically dis-
carded after one use. Xerox is working on the develop-
ment of standard reusable inserts, possibly made of
plastic.
Palletless? The Supplier Packaging program allows
Xerox to reuse and therefore use fewer new pallets, but
pallets still represent a major cost for the company.
Switching from wood to a more durable plastic pallet
would save money over time but, as is the case with re-
usable plastic containers, the initial costs are high. Anew
plastic pallet costs about $38, compared with $5-6 for
wooden pallets. Eventually, Xerox might experiment with
palletless shipping. According to Vannozzi, this would
require switching to clamp-type forklift trucks at all load-
ing and receiving locations. In the long run, this might
save millions of dollars.
CASE STUDY: Toyota USA
Toyota, Japans largest auto manufacturer, began mak-
ing cars in the United States in 1988. Toyotas initial blue-
print for its US auto manufacturing operation involved a
distribution system based on the use of reusable ship-
ping containers, which the company was already using
in Japan. But Toyota USA encountered obstacles that its
parent company did not face in Japan.
In implementing its reusable shipping container system,
Toyota has applied a philosophy known as kaizen, which
means striving toward continuous improvement. This
approach has helped Toyota USA find a number of op-
portunities to increase efficiency and lower transporta-
tion costs.
Toyotas distribution system relies on the frequent deliv-
ery of standardized reusable shipping containers. The key
features of Toyotas system include:
l Standard container and pallet sizes that maximize
space in transport vehicles
13
l Containers that fit into its assembly-line operations
l Reliance on dedicated carriers that make daily deliv-
eries and pickups of empty containers, facilitating the
smooth distribution and hauling back of containers.23
Toyotas reusable shipping container system has enabled
the company to save in at least two areas:
l Reduced freight costs, by over $3 million annually
l Avoided disposal costs
Background
Toyota Motor Manufacturing USAInc. began mass-pro-
ducing Camry Sedans at its 3.7-million-square foot manu-
facturing facility in Georgetown, Kentucky, in 1988. In
1991, 4,000 Toyota team members (the companys term
for its employees) produced 200,000 vehicles. A 3.2-
million-square foot expansion is expected to double pro-
duction by 1995.
When Toyota began operations at its Kentucky facility,
it developed a distribution system with reusable ship-
ping containers in mind, adapted from its main opera-
tions in Japan. Dedicated carriers - trucking compa-
nies hired to work solely with Toyota - were assigned
specific routes for daily pickups of parts from suppliers.
A just-in-time delivery system helped to ensure a rapid
turnover of full and empty containers, allowing for cost-
efficient hauling back of containers. Toyota further en-
hanced this system by increasing its use of domestic sup-
pliers and by working with suppliers to develop a
standardized container system.
Local Suppliers Toyota purchased $1.2 billion in parts
made by US companies in 1992, up from $70 million in
1988. About 90 percent of these suppliers are located
within 500 miles of the Georgetown plant.24 The use of
local suppliers has helped the company to increase its
use of reusable shipping containers, because smaller dis-
tances facilitate the return of empty containers.
New cars, new containers When Toyota planned for a
major model change in 1991, it also planned a new dis-
tribution packaging system. Toyota developed the new
container system with the following goals:
l Standardize reusable containers and pallets to
maximize cube efficiency in trailers Previously, the
use of many non-standard shipping containers resulted
in much lost or dead space in the trucks making de-
liveries, leading to higher freight costs for Toyota.
l Design containers to be ergonomically compatible
Containers were designed for material loads within
the 40-pound limit required by Toyota for manual
14
handling, with hand grips to minimize the risk of re-
petitive motion disorders.
Design new containers Toyota developed the specifica-
tions and standards for its new containers and worked
with container manufacturers to design them. Toyota re-
quires its suppliers to purchase and maintain these con-
tainers, which include plastic crates, metal racks, and
corrugated cardboard boxes with plastic lids. According
to Toyota, initial purchase of the new containers cost
suppliers $8-10 million overall, with costs per supplier
ranging from $1,000 to $1 million, depending on the
number of parts they were shipping. While suppliers make
the initial investment, over time they recoup this cost
from Toyota, the automaker says. Toyota says that some
reusable containers may last up to 20 years and may make
30 to 40 trips per year, depending on the number of de-
liveries suppliers make each day.
Toyota worked closely with one container manufacturer,
LEWISystems in Watertown, Wisconsin, a division of
Menasha Corporation, which supplies the containers for
about 50 percent of all Toyotas parts. LEWISystems also
worked with Toyotas suppliers and helped defray costs
by buying back old containers or swapping new contain-
ers for old ones. LEWISystems containers are plastic
totes designed for manual handling that conform to Au-
tomobile Industry Action Group standards and Toyotas
40-pound maximum weight limit.
Toyota uses about 30 different types of containers, vary-
ing in size and weight from small totes that weigh one
pound to bulk bins that weigh up to 500 pounds. Indi-
vidual containers are designed in 15-inch increments so
that, regardless of size, they fill out standard sized pal-
lets that are 48 inches long and 45 inches wide. The pal-
lets themselves are designed to utilize maximum space
to cube out standard size trailers that are 48 feet long,
90 inches wide, and 96 inches high.
Reusable dunnage Many of the containers are designed
with custom dunnage which, besides protecting parts
inside the containers, improves handling efficiency on
the assembly line by positioning parts for fast removal.
Suppliers reuse about 90 percent of the dunnage Toyota
uses. The dunnage itself - polystyrene, high density
polyethylene (HDPE), or other molded plastic partitions
-typically lasts from three to five years.
Distribution
Toyota uses three trucking companies that own and op-
erate trailers dedicated to the companys routes; each
trailer may make deliveries 2-to- 16 times per day. In to-
tal these carriers travel approximately 70,000 miles per
day at a freight rate of $1.30 per mile, or about $91,000
per day. Toyota suppliers that use reusable containers are
located as far away as Quebec (1,700 miles).
Distribution is set up so that, with each delivery, trucks
bringing supplier parts to Toyota pick up empty ship-
ping containers. At Toyota, as container or pallet loads
of materials are carried to the production line, empty
containers are returned to a designated storage area where
they are palletized and loaded onto trucks for back-haul
to suppliers. On the production floor, full containers are
placed on gravity flow racks - slopes that allow con-
tainers to slide down to the assembly line by the force of
gravity. Assembly-line workers return empty containers
to reverse flow racks for pickup and return to storage.
Dunnage remains inside the containers for return ship-
ment, saving labor for both Toyota and the supplier.
As suppliers are responsible for their own containers,
the containers are hot-stamped with the suppliers names
to ensure that they get back to them. Toyota reports very
little container loss - about 3 percent annually due to
damage or misplacement within the plant. Since all con-
tainers are delivered by dedicated carriers, loss due to
theft or misdelivery is not a big problem.
Impact
By standardizing its container system, Toyota has been
able to increase its space efficiency in trailers by 21 per-
cent. According to Toyota, this has resulted in a savings
of more than $3 million in transportation costs, or ap-
proximately $18 for each vehicle built. Toyota sees fur-
ther opportunity to increase space efficiency inside trucks
by designing containers to hold more parts without go-
ing over the 40-pound limit and by marking pallets bet-
ter so that they are not loaded incorrectly onto trucks.
Toyota hopes through its current review process or kaizen
to reduce transportation costs by an additional 15 per-
cent.
Waste Toyota has not calculated the amount of waste
reduction achieved by increasing its use of reusable ship-
ping containers. In general, it reports a reduction of waste
going to landfills, due in part to continually reducing the
amount of disposable material that enters the plant and
to its in-house recycling efforts. Manufacturers of reus-
able containers generally take them back when they be-
come unusable, grind them up, and recycle them into
new containers.
Manufacturing: Challenges for smaller
companies
The two case studies above describe the programs of large
multinational corporations. Smaller manufacturers, how-
ever, may face greater difficulties in switching to reus-
able shipping containers. John Okun is waste reduction
and recycling director of the Long Island City Business
Development Corporation, a non-profit organization
dedicated to the preservation and enhancement of busi-
ness opportunities for companies in western Queens, New
York. Okun reports that some of the manufacturers and
distributors with whom he works find that a number of
obstacles often make it impractical to switch to reusable
containers. These obstacles may include high initial costs
and resistance on the part of suppliers and customers.
Besides the expense of investing in a float of containers,
Okun states that often, labor and handling costs increase
in the short run when a reusable shipping container sys-
tem is established.
The purchasing habits of smaller companies may also
pose an obstacle. Smaller companies often purchase
materials in small quantities, too small to give them much
clout with suppliers. Or companies may purchase their
materials from spot markets, often overseas, which offer
substantial purchasing savings but little flexibility in
terms of shipping medium distances. Similarly, Okun re-
ports that smaller manufacturers dont represent a large
enough source for some of their customers. These cus-
tomers may have rigid receiving policies which preclude
switching to reusable shipping containers. One solution,
Okun suggests, may be for several small to medium com-
panies to purchase raw materials cooperatively, thereby
gaining the clout to persuade suppliers to ship materials
in reusable containers.
Another factor for smaller companies may be storage
costs, as maintaining a supply of shipping containers re-
quires additional space. This is especially true during
the transition period from disposable to reusable con-
tainers or where companies have relationships with some
customers that preclude the use of reusable containers,
Okun says.
Freight costs sometimes increase, too, when companies
haul back empty containers to suppliers. In addition, com-
panies that adopt reusable shipping containers may find
that savings in waste disposal costs lag behind any re-
duction in generation of waste materials.
But in the long run, costs for packaging and disposal
decrease, and product damage is minimized, Okun says.
These savings tend to offset cost increases in labor and
15
handling, freight and storage. But again, it is often the
size of the firm and quantity of materials involved that
determines bottom-line benefits. 25
Working with business intermediaries
Local development corporations, small business devel-
opment centers, and trade associations may play a role
in encouraging industry standardization of shipping con-
tainers and cooperative efforts to work with suppliers.
According to John Okun of the Long Island City Busi-
ness Development Corporation, business intermediaries
may be better suited to play such a role than many gov-
ernment agencies. Companies that fear government agen-
cies regulatory powers may be more comfortable work-
ing with a business intermediary on issues related to
switching to reusable shipping containers. In addition,
business development centers and trade associations can
provide varied assistance for companies that want to
implement reusable shipping container programs in gen-
eral and standardized container systems in particular.26
IV. Case Studies in the Grocery and
Supermarket Industry
T he food and beverage industry received more
shipments in corrugated boxes than any other in-
dustry in 1993 (see Figure 2). Food Marketing Institute
surveys indicate that old corrugated containers (OCC)
can make up about 84 percent of a large supermarket
chains waste and 46 percent of a smaller operations
waste.27 Nearly 80 percent of grocery distributors and
retailers have OCC recovery programs. But about 30 per-
cent of grocery store OCC is not recyclable because it is
28
waxed or contaminated. Even when recycling OCC
would generate revenue, the labor and handling costs of
preparing the material for recycling may exceed that rev-
enue.
Waxed corrugated containers used to ship fresh produce
make up 3-5 percent of the OCC stream, accounting for
about 17 percent of all grocery waste, according to the
Grocery Manufacturers Associations committee on solid
waste.29 The produce industry alone disposes of 100-200
million waxed boxes per year.30 According to Franklin
Associates, between 1972 and 1987, corrugated contain-
ers used for produce constituted the fastest growing seg-
ment of the corrugated packaging waste stream for food
and kindred products.31
16
Reuse: Opportunities and obstacles
Does the reuse of shipping containers offer opportuni-
ties for reducing the grocery industrys waste stream of
corrugated boxes? What types of distribution systems are
most compatible with this switch? To answer this, IN-
FORM spoke with representatives of two product manu-
facturers, five large supermarket chains, a small chain of
food cooperatives, a reclaimer of empty produce boxes,
and a company that manufactures and leases standard-
ized shipping containers.
INFORM has identified two kinds of distribution systems
that are compatible with reusable shipping containers and
one industry segment in particular that has shown in-
creasing interest in reusables:
l Direct delivery from product manufacturer to store
Many grocery goods are distributed through ware-
houses, but direct delivery to stores is still common
in the milk, baked goods, and soft drink industries
and in cases where supermarkets run their own pro-
duction facilities. The manufacturer ships products
either to its own stores or to other companies retail
outlets.
l Break-bulk operations When individual stores or-
der in quantities smaller than full cases of products,
distributors may unpack bulk cases and repack prod-
ucts in smaller boxes for store delivery.
l Produce industry The waxed cardboard commonly
used for produce is not recyclable,32 so reusable con-
tainers can save retailers money in disposal costs and
also save growers money in reduced packaging ex-
penses.
Implementing an industry-wide reusable shipping con-
tainer program presents a significant challenge for the
manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers involved in the
production and distribution of grocery goods. In general,
a number of factors related to grocery distribution cur-
rently work against a comprehensive reuse system, in-
cluding the following:
Investing in a large enough float of containers is
expensive. Switching from single-use to reusable ship-
ping containers requires a large initial investment. Not
only may reusable containers cost 2-to-20 times more
than single-use containers, but manufacturers may
need to start with one-and-a-half to three times as
many because they need a steady supply of contain-
ers to compensate for those in transit. According to
one container manufacturer, the capital investment
may be hard to justify, especially in times of reces-
sion.33
l The cost of return freight to haul back empty con-
tainers may be prohibitive. Most product manufac-
 turers do not own their own trucks but, instead, con-
tract out to common carriers. After making deliver-
ies, these carriers usually pick up additional loads for
other companies. To accommodate a reusable con-
tainer system, common carriers may need to change
routes or add extra trucks to haul back empty con-
tainers - adding to the cost of such a system and
possibly making it uneconomical.
Ensuring the return of containers is difficult. A na-
tional manufacturer may deliver hundreds of differ-
ent products to thousands of distribution warehouses
and stores across the country. As common carriers
typically distribute these goods, it is difficult to con-
trol an individual manufacturers pool of containers.
And because reusable shipping containers tend to be
valuable, concerns about theft are great. Even when a
company uses its own trucks, ensuring the return of
containers may be a problem.
Tracking containers may be difficult. As thousands
of different product lines may pass through a
supermarkets distribution warehouses and stores,
tracking individual companies containers would be
an added expense and administrative burden - espe-
cially if the system entailed deposits for empty con-
tainers.
Adequate storage facilities may not be available.
The lack of secure storage space for empty containers
presents another problem. According to one supermar-
ket industry source, todays stores have less available
back-room space than stores had in the past.34
Distribution systems in which reusable
shipping containers are common
Despite these barriers, INFORM has identified two distri-
bution systems in which reusable shipping containers are
commonly used to ship grocery products today: direct
store delivery and break-bulk operations.
Direct store delivery
Most grocery products are shipped to stores in the United
States by wholesalers, via distribution warehouses that
may store thousands of different products. However,
some products are shipped directly from the point of
manufacture to individual stores. Perishable items such
as milk and bread are shipped frequently and directly to
stores to ensure freshness. Soft drink companies tradi-
tionally have also shipped their products directly to stores
from bottling facilities or company-owned warehouses.
The milk industry Single-use corrugated shipping boxes
do not work well in the milk industry for two reasons.
First, milk must be kept cold while shipped, and with
condensation, corrugated cardboard becomes too soggy
to hold the weight of the milk containers. Second, milk
is a perishable product that is delivered frequently to the
same locations. This means that dairies, which make fre-
quent round trips, save money on packaging by opting
for reusable cases. Today most dairies use plastic cases,
which began to replace wood in the 1960s.
Stewarts Processing Corporations Saratoga Dairy
(Saratoga Springs, New York) ships one-way and refill-
able milk bottles and cartons in plastic shipping crates to
Stewarts 200 convenience stores. On return runs, the
companys trucks haul back empty milk bottles in the
same crates. According to Stewarts management, this
kind of back-hauling does not add significantly to the
companys transportation costs.35
Soft drink industry The soft drink industry tradition-
ally has maintained direct store delivery from bottling
plants to stores, sometimes via company-owned distri-
bution warehouses. As the industry as a whole moved
from refillable to one-way primary packaging, it aban-
doned reusable transport packaging. However, this is
starting to change. The Pepsi-Cola Company has shipped
its 2-liter bottles in reusable plastic crates since the mid-
198Os, and the company currently uses them for 80-90
percent of these deliveries.
Pepsi-Cola delivers its beverages directly to retailers in
company-owned trucks. Company personnel unload and
stock the product on shelves and take back empty crates.
Sometimes workers leave crates in the stores until the
next delivery, where they form displays at the end of
aisles. (The loaded crates are designed to stack together.)
In some instances, Pepsi-Cola charges stores a deposit
of $1.OO for each crate.
Reusable crates cost less per use than single-use corru-
gated boxes. One-way cardboard cartons cost $0.25-$0.30
apiece. The plastic crates cost Pepsi-Cola about $1.60
each and may average 100 uses. Over the course of its
useful life, the reusable crate costs $0.016 per use, nearly
$0.26 less per use, on average, than a single-use corru-
gated box.
According to S.P. (Sal) Porrazzo, Pepsi-Colas director
of environmental affairs, the plastic crates are also more
durable and can be stacked higher, thereby taking up less
floor space than corrugated containers. Pepsi-Cola esti-
mates that switching to plastic has eliminated 80-90,000
tons of corrugated waste per year.36
17
Pepsi-Cola may begin to ship cans and bottles of other
sizes in reusable crates as well. The company is testing
prototypes of crates for 16-ounce glass and plastic bottles
and 12-ounce cans in northern California. However,
Porrazzo says that getting reusable crates back from con-
sumers who buy a case of 24 cans is sometimes a prob-
lem, because there is no deposit.37
Products manufactured or prepared at supermarkets
own production facilities Some supermarkets and con-
venience stores make or prepare their own line of prod-
ucts at facilities near the stores distribution centers. This
arrangement allows companies to deliver directly to their
stores and avoid third-party distributors.
H. E. Butt Grocery Company (San Antonio, Texas) -
the largest family-owned grocery company in the United
States, with 235 stores -produces or prepares many of
its own items in manufacturing facilities at its distribu-
tion centers. According to Linda Smith, the companys
manager of environmental affairs, H. E. Butt packs its
baked goods and dairy items in plastic, reusable ship-
ping containers. After receipt at the store, the containers
are emptied and returned to the distribution centers by
returning H. E. Butt trucks. The companys manufactur-
ing facilities are equipped with conveyors and washers
that prepare and clean the reusable containers before they
are returned to the appropriate facility.38
Wakefern Food Corporation, the merchandising and dis-
tribution arm of ShopRite supermarkets in Connecticut,
Delaware, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania, uses
reusable containers to ship fish directly from its distri-
bution warehouse, where it cuts up the fish for shipment
to its stores.39
Break-bulk operations
To accommodate individual stores that order products in
quantities smaller than a full case, distributors at super-
market warehouses or third-party wholesalers may break
up the bulk cases - mostly corrugated boxes - and
repack products in smaller boxes for delivery to stores.
Some supermarket distributors have found it more eco-
nomical to repack these smaller loads into reusable ship-
ping containers.
Wakefern Food Corporation has been using nestable, re-
usable plastic totes for about 15 years. The company uses
the totes to send orders of various products, such as house-
hold appliances and health and beauty aids, from its gen-
eral merchandise warehouse to individual stores. When
a store orders less than a whole boxs worth of a particu-
lar product, Wakefern repacks the products from card-
18
board boxes into the totes. The totes save Wakefern
money on packaging and labor. A separate company re-
pairs the totes, which may last for seven or more years.
Wakefern trucks bring all totes to and from its stores.
Hannaford Brothers provides another example of break-
bulk operations. The company, which has 93 supermar-
kets in Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New
York, and Vermont, currently uses reusable totes for re-
packed health and beauty items and to deliver in-house
sanitation supplies. When health and beauty items are
shipped to Hannafords warehouse, the company repacks
them in reusable totes for specific store orders40
Shipping produce in reusable containers:
Three different systems
Besides the direct delivery and break-bulk settings de-
scribed above, some retailers have shown increasing in-
terest in reusable produce containers in place of waxed
cardboard. Because waxed cardboard is not currently
recyclable, the retailers view reusable containers as one
way of cutting disposal costs. The following case stud-
ies describe three different solutions for reusing produce
containers. The Puget Consumers Co-op (PCC) in Se-
attle, Washington, worked with a local produce grower
and a wholesaler to develop a pilot program in which
reusable plastic containers are used in a closed-loop dis-
tribution system. The second case study describes the
operations of Doms Empty Package Supply Inc., in New
Paltz, New York, which reclaims nonrecyclable produce
containers from grocery stores and supermarkets and sells
them for reuse. The third case study describes the Ger-
man-based International Fruit Container Organizations
development of a standardized industry-wide reusable
plastic container system for shipping produce in Europe.
Puget Consumers Co-op: A local
distribution network
PCC is a 36,000-member food cooperative that owns and
operates eight stores in Seattle, Washington. The co-op
received a grant of $10,800 from the Seattle Solid Waste
Utility to develop a pilot project using reusable shipping
containers to distribute fresh produce.41 PCC used most
of the grant money to buy 800 reusable plastic contain-
ers to replace nonrecyclable wax-coated corrugated
boxes42
PCC tested the reusable plastic shipping containers in a
limited distribution system that shipped produce from a
local organic grower, Rents Due Ranch (Stanwood,
Washington), to a local wholesaler, Rosellas Produce
(Seattle, Washington), and to PCC. As part of the test,
Rents Due used reusable containers to ship cases of pro-
duce (leaf lettuce, zucchini, squash, peas, broccoli, and
beans) from Rents Due to PCC.
How it works Rents Due Ranch packs freshly picked
produce into the reusable containers, which it holds in
cold storage until Rosellas picks it up. Five days a week,
Rosellas takes the produce from Rents Due and deliv-
ers it to PCC stores, then hauls back the empty contain-
ers to Rosellas warehouse. PCC and Rosellas use an
invoice system to track each time a full container is ex-
changed for an empty one. PCC is Rosellas only cus-
tomer using reusable containers, so accounting for the
containers is a relatively simple job. Rosellas ships empty
containers to the grower as needed.
The containers, made by Buckhorn Manufacturing in
Milford, Ohio, are nestable when empty, for space-effi-
cient storage, and have an open lattice-work bottom that
allows for air circulation and drainage.
Project goals One goal of the project was to reduce the
amount of waxed cardboard PCC was discarding. PCC
estimated that waxed cardboard produce boxes made up
16-18 percent of its stores waste stream, with disposal
costs ranging between $30.84 and $41.57 for every
$100,000 of store sales. All told, PCC was spending $170-
$229 per month on disposal of waxed cardboard pro-
duce boxes.
A second goal was to reduce Rents Due Ranchs pack-
aging costs. Single-use waxed cardboard boxes repre-
sented a significant cost for the grower, in part because it
can afford to buy only a small volume of boxes at one
time. At $1.50 apiece, the cost of the box itself made up
25 percent of the wholesale cost of a case of lettuce dur-
ing peak growing season.
Less garbage but no immediate savings for PCC Re-
usable containers reduced PCCs waste stream, but this
reduction was not enough to lower the co-ops disposal
costs. This is because PCCs waste hauler charges on the
basis of the number and volume of dumpsters collected
from PCC monthly, not by weight. To reduce disposal
costs, PCC must cut its waste volume enough to allow it
either to reduce the number of times its waste is collected
weekly or to switch to a smaller dumpster. PCC estimates
that it could save $115 per month, or 12 percent of total
disposal costs, if it could switch 45 percent of its pro-
duce shipments from waxed cardboard to reusable con-
tainers; other retail stores of similar size might show simi-
lar savings, according to PCC.43
Growers do better The project demonstrated that grow-
ers could save substantially in shipping container costs.
PCC estimates that over a five-year period, the expected
useful life of the reusable containers, a small grower could
save more than $40,000 in packaging costs and recoup
its initial investment within four months.44
Other advantages PCC reports that the reusable con-
tainers protect produce better than waxed cardboard and
are easier for wholesalers to handle and ship.
Obstacles to broader use PCC identified a number of
obstacles that must be overcome in establishing similar
programs, including the large initial investment required;
the risk of container loss, particularly in a system with
multiple growers and retailers; an efficient and frequent
back-hauling system; and lack of storage space in stores.
PCC told INFORM that it would like to expand the pro-
duce shipping program and find other farmers willing to
participate. PCC would like to develop a partnership with
the grower that would pay for additional reusable con-
tainers, since the grant money will have been spent. Those
parties that would receive greater savings would pay for
a greater percentage of the containers.
The PCC case study shows the advantages of using reus-
able shipping containers in a tightly controlled, locally-
based distribution system. Even for seasonal markets,
switching to reusables makes sense economically. How-
ever, according to Ted Brown at Hannaford Brothers,
reusable shipping containers are not appropriate for ship-
ping goods from far away.45 Lettuce, for example, is
shipped to Hannafords New England stores from Cali-
fornia and Florida, making back-haul of containers ex-
pensive. Brown adds that while Hannaford is consider-
ing using reusable containers for locally shipped produce,
produce is not available from local growers year-round.
Doms Empty Package Supply: An open-
loop reuse system
James A. Badami, president of Doms Empty Package
Supply Inc., in New Paltz, New York, has overcome the
problem of reuse and long-distance distribution by de-
veloping what he calls an open-loop reuse system.
Badamis business reclaims used produce containers from
stores and sells them back to growers, who can use them
again. The business collects a wide variety of produce
containers destined for disposal, including: wire-bound
wooden crates, waxed corrugated cardboard boxes, plas-
tic one-pint strawberry baskets, and polystyrene foam.
These containers are generally not accepted by recyclers;
19
but even though they were intended for just one use, they
are durable enough to withstand further use for shipping
produce or other items. Badami says that wooden wire-
bound boxes constitute his biggest market. He estimates
that he handles more than a million of the 80-90 million
wire-bound boxes that are manufactured in the United
States each year.46
Doms was founded in 1941 by James Badamis father
and today employs 18 people. Doms recently added a
5,000-square foot building next to an already standing
6,000-square foot facility. Supply and demand was the
basis for the creation of a reuse business in the 194Os,
he says. Today, Doms service is still in demand for
small growers and farmers who save money by buying
used instead of new containers.
Savings for growers Badami describes his operation as
an open-loop system. At a supermarket in New York,
Doms may reclaim a one-bushel bean crate that origi-
nated in Tennessee, then sell it to an onion grower in
Maryland or a clammer in New England. Badami has no
idea how many times individual boxes are actually re-
used. In some cases, growers buy the used boxes, which
then reenter the loop. In other cases, a buyer uses a box
in such a way that it may not be possible to reclaim it for
future use. For example, Doms may reclaim a box that
was used to ship grapes from California to the east coast
and sell the box to a nursery that uses it as a planter. Or a
consumer may bring the box home from the store filled
with fruit. In either case, there is no further possibility
for reclaiming the box as part of the produce loop. Try-
ing to monitor the movement of a specific container over
its useful life would depend on the cooperation of too
many different people and would add to the cost of reus-
ing the container, Badami says.
Doms has as many as 200 customers, some as-far away
as Florida, Canada, and California. In some cases, Doms
ships reclaimed containers in its own trucks; in others,
customers come to pick up containers. Sometimes Doms
ships containers back to their point of origin. One Cali-
fornia grape grower buys back its own boxes from Doms
at about 50 percent of the cost of new boxes.
Retailers save on disposal costs In addition to helping
growers save money, Doms saves large retailers money
in avoided disposal costs. Badami says that he is saving
one large supermarket chain $25,000 a month in disposal
and related costs by collecting its nonrecyclable produce
containers. The 41 chain stores, located in New York and
Northern New Jersey, pay him to pick up the boxes but
save money because, according to Badami, his fee is
20
cheaper than the cost of paying a compactors fee plus
transport and landfill tipping fees.
Still, Badami has had a hard time convincing some re-
tailers that his service makes sense. Many of them think
that putting [the boxes] in the dumpster is the cheaper
way to go, he says. Another problem is that many lo-
calities do not require stores to separate reusable items
from trash, even in areas with source-separation laws.
And some source-separation laws specifically exclude
waxed cardboard. As a result, many retailers feel no ob-
ligation to separate these boxes from their trash, even
though reclaiming the boxes would keep them out of land-
fills or incinerators.
Nationwide potential Badami believes that his type of
operation could be replicated easily. He believes that
government at all levels could help in the creation of
similar businesses by:
Creating an awareness of the importance of reuse in
reducing the waste stream
Establishing a network of reuse markets so that grow-
ers, shippers, and distributors can be put in contact
with reclaimers
Mandating source separation of reusable containers,
such as waxed cardboard and wire-bound boxes
Providing tax incentives or loan programs to help get
businesses started and to stimulate job creation.
Doms is an example of regional third-party reclamation
that can be replicated on a local or regional level any-
where. Within the region, Doms performs a unique ser-
vice in keeping a significant quantity of containers out
of the solid waste stream - primarily containers that
were intended for just one use - at what is, in effect, no
cost to stores.
International Fruit Container Organization:
Leasing standardized containers
This next case study documents a more sophisticated
third-party reclamation system than that of Doms. It in-
volves leasing standardized reusable produce containers
on an industry-wide basis. International Fruit Container
Organization (IFCO), a German company based in
Munich, makes shipping containers for produce.
Schoeller International, a Munich-based company that
makes reusable beer and soft drink crates, formed IFCO
largely in response to the 1991 German packaging ordi-
nance that makes industry financially responsible for its
packages to the end of their life cycles, including the
costs of collecting, sorting, and recycling packages after
 Figure 3: IFCO 's Deposit System
Source: Schoeller International Group
they are discarded. The goal of the ordinance was to shift
the cost of managing packaging waste from the public
sector to private industry.47
IFCO differs from US manufacturers of reusable ship-
ping containers in two fundamental ways. First, IFCO
designs and markets standardized reusable plastic ship-
ping crates not for individual companies but for the fruit
and vegetable industry in general. Second, IFCO does
not sell crates to growers and packers. Instead, it leases
the containers to them.
An industry standard IFCO manufactures its fruit and
vegetable containers from polypropylene in seven stan-
dard sizes. According to Peter B. Zaboji, president and
chief executive officer of Schoeller International, the stan-
dardized crates accommodate nearly 75 percent of all
produce shipped through the German market.48 Since
nearly 80 percent of the produce consumed in Germany
is imported, IFCO also has worked with growers who
ship produce to Germany from other countries, includ-
ing Belgium, France, Israel, Italy, Netherlands, and Spain.
During the period from April 1993 to March 1994, over
12 million IFCO containers were reused. According to
Zaboji, this translates into a reduction of 100 million ki-
lograms (110,250 tons) of waste. Schoeller has also in-
troduced standardized packaging systems for supermar-
ket dry goods and for eggs, meat, and fish. The company
is exploring the feasibility of similar systems for the au-
tomobile, book, furniture, and mail order industries.
Standardization simplifies the reuse of packaging in a
distribution system by enabling companies to use each
others containers interchangeably, reducing the number
of containers any one company must purchase and elimi-
nating the need to haul back empty containers to their
points of origin. Standardization also simplifies sorting
of container types and accounting for individual contain-
ers.
How IFCO works IFCO leases containers to growers
and packers of produce on an as-needed basis. After de-
livery to retail food outlets, the empty containers are col-
lected by a logistics service company hired by IFCO,
which cleans, stores, and redelivers empty containers to
growers. In Germany alone, the company has 30 depots
for reconditioning and storing empty containers.
To be competitive with makers of single-use packaging,
IFCO must keep its rental costs lower than the purchase
price of single-use containers. For IFCO, this means keep-
ing the cost of storage, handling, transportation, and de-
preciation lower than the cost of manufacturing and re-
cycling single-use containers. IFCO crates themselves
last up to five years and may be recycled at the end of
their useful life into new crates.
Deposits are key A grower who leases a container from
IFCO leaves a deposit (see Figure 3). The grower then
21
charges a deposit to retailers when the product is deliv-
ered to stores. Retailers redeem their deposits once IFCO
recovers the crates. However, these deposits are gener-
ally accounting procedures with no money changing
hands unless the IFCO containers are lost or stolen. Ac-
cording to Peter Zaboji, deposits help to control the whole
process. IFCO reports little loss due to theft.
Savings Zaboji reports that both growers and retailers
save by leasing the crates. Growers save on packaging
and associated disposal costs and avoid the administra-
tive burden of ensuring that empty containers are recycled
or reused, as required by the German Packaging Ordi-
nance. Retailers report better product protection and re-
duced handling and labor costs in the stores. The crates
themselves are collapsible, reducing the volume of space
needed to store empty containers and the number of trucks
IFCO needs for hauling containers back to its depots.
US potential? Chep USA The German Packaging Or-
dinance stimulated new reusable packaging systems such
as IFCO. However, in the United States, it may be pos-
sible to implement third-party container systems in re-
sponse to market demand, without legislative catalyst.
Such a system could reduce many of the costs associated
with using reusable packaging outside of a closed-loop
distribution system.
Chep USA in Park Ridge, New Jersey, provides plastic
pallets through a similar service in the United States and
other countries, including Australia, Canada, South Af-
rica, New Zealand, and various European countries. In
the United States, Chep operates a national pallet rental
service for grocery manufacturers and distributors, mass
merchandisers, warehouse clubs, discount drug stores,
and fresh produce companies. Chep rents pallets to manu-
facturers who deliver goods on Cheps pallets to partici-
pating distributors. The distributor is responsible for re-
turning the pallets to one of the more than 140 depots
that Chep operates nationwide. Chep maintains pallets
and helps both manufacturers and distributors track pal-
lets. Donna Gorman of Cheps Marketing Services De-
partment says that the chief benefits of the system are
lower damage rates for products shipped; quicker deliv-
ery; and elimination of distributors pallet storage costs.
v. Policy Options that Promote Reuse
D espite the environmental and economic advan-
tages of reusing shipping containers, not all distri-
bution systems easily lend themselves to the efficient use
22
of reusable packaging. As shown in Table 3, most of the
obstacles to expanding the use of reusable shipping con-
tainers in the United States are financial. Resistance to
change is another obstacle. According to Xerox, prior to
implementation of its Supplier Packaging Program, many
of its suppliers had good long-standing relationships with
the companies from which they bought their packaging
and so were reluctant to change. As described earlier,
convincing suppliers to switch to reusable containers may
be an especially difficult task for small businesses that
lack the procurement clout of a company such as Xerox.
Promoting reuse: Government options
INFORM has identified at least five government policies
that alone or in combination could promote the use of
reusable packaging in the United States:
Government mandates to use reusable shipping con-
tainers, including requiring the use of standardized
containers
Economic incentives to encourage reuse
Government procurement policies favoring reusable
packaging
Manufacturers responsibility legislation
Broad materials policies encouraging reuse
Government mandates
Government at any level can require producers or ship-
pers to deliver goods in reusable shipping containers. To
facilitate such a mandate, government may also require
that each industry use standardized containers so that
companies can use each others containers interchange-
ably. Standardization simplifies the reuse of packaging
in a distribution system by reducing the number of con-
tainers any one company must purchase, eliminating the
need to haul back empty containers to points of origin,
and simplifying the sorting and accounting of individual
container types. Government mandates may work best if
designed with enough flexibility to encourage other types
of packaging innovation, besides reuse, that would re-
duce material use - for example, selecting a different
packaging material or adopting bulk packaging, then
encouraging use of recycled content and recyclability.
Economic incentives encouraging reuse
Government at any level can provide financial incentives
that help industry switch from one-way to reusable con-
tainers. These incentives may include tax credits or low-
 Table 3: Expanding Reuse of Shipping Containers:
Challenges and Solutions

OBSTACLE SOLUTION: Industry options SOLUTION: Government options

Large initial capital expense Third-party leasing Low-interest loans, tax credits

Cost of administering system Third-party leasing Mandated standardization

Industry-wide standardization
of containers

Cost of long-distance freight to Industry-wide standardization

return containers of containers

Resistance to changing packaging Cooperative effort Government procurement guidelines

and shipping practices within an industry that favor or require reusable shipping
to work with suppliers containers

Lack of procurement clout on the Cooperative purchasing

part of small business

Lack of storage space for empty Collapsible, nestable, and stackable Financial incentives for establishing
containers containers storage depots, such as loans or
Frequent collection of containers tax credits
Just-in-time delivery
Direct delivery
SOURCE: INFORM

interest loans for container manufacturers, product manu-
facturers, wholesalers, and retailers converting to reus-
able shipping container systems. Incentives can also take
the form of grants that provide the capital for companies
to pilot a reusable shipping container program, as in the
case of the PCC project. Incentives would ease the way
toward investing in containers and related handling equip-
ment.
Government procurement
Government in the United States is the nations largest
economic sector, accounting for about 20 percent of the
Gross Domestic Product and employing one in six work-
ers at the federal, state, or local level. Just as Xerox and
Toyota had the purchasing clout to persuade large sup-
pliers to switch to reusable shipping containers, govern-
ment can use its considerable purchasing power to re-
quire suppliers to use reusable shipping containers when
shipping to government-run or government-contracted
facilities. These may include armed forces installations,
schools, hospitals, correctional facilities, and recreational
facilities.
Manufacturers responsibility legislation
In 1991 Germany passed a packaging ordinance that
makes industry financially responsible for its primary,
secondary, and transport packaging to the end of the pack-
ages life cycles, including the costs of collecting, sort-
ing, and recycling packages after they are discarded. The
goal of the ordinance was to shift the cost of managing
packaging waste from the public sector to private indus-
try.
One component of Germanys Packaging Ordinance is
the requirement that manufacturers and distributors take
back transport packaging for reuse and recycling inde-
pendent of the public waste management system. The
requirement has led manufacturers and distributors ei-
ther to arrange for third parties to pick up used packag-
ing or to compensate retailers for managing waste based
on the materials and quantities involved. By adding the
cost of waste management to the overall cost of single-
use transport packaging, the ordinance has encouraged
shippers of consumer goods and other products to shift
to reusable packaging. Many new reusable packaging
systems have been developed for various products, in-

23
cluding the IFCO system for fruits and vegetables and
other container systems for fish, medicine, bicycles, fur-
niture, and the general line of consumer products sold in
supermarkets.
Broad materials policies
Establishing broad materials policies, such as taxes on
raw materials or energy consumption, can give compa-
nies an economic incentive for reducing the environmen-
tal impact of material use. The broad goal of these poli-
cies is to internalize the environmental costs of an
economic activity so that industry absorbs these costs
and accounts for them in pricing goods and services. Cost
internalization can give industry an incentive to adopt
reusable products and packages as one strategy to re-
duce material consumption.
Incentives to Reuse
As shown in the case studies in this report, the opportu-
nity to save money on packaging, waste disposal, and
associated handling costs may be enough of an incentive
for some companies to switch to reusable shipping con-
tainers. In other cases, the prospect of legislation that
would restrict their current waste management practices
24
has led companies to switch to reusable containers. To
cite one example, the John Deere Company in Horicon,
Wisconsin, switched to plastic reusable transport pack-
aging when Wisconsin passed a law banning corrugated
paperboard from landfills and incinerators starting in
1995.49
Proposals are surfacing in Congress and in state legisla-
tures to expand manufacturers responsibility for prod-
ucts and packages to include the cost of recycling and
disposal. As seen in Germany, such legislation can pro-
vide a strong economic incentive for reuse as a source
reduction measure. Some states also have proposed to
ban the import of out-of-state waste, which could limit
manufacturers and municipalities options for sending
materials to landfills.
Business may decide to adopt reusable shipping contain-
ers for a variety of reasons: as a way of boosting effi-
ciency and saving money on packaging and disposal; in
response to customer demand; or in response to govern-
ment mandates or incentive-based policies. Whatever the
motivation, INFORM has found that using reusable ship-
ping containers can help manufacturers and agricultural
producers improve their bottom lines while lessening the
nations garbage burden.
Notes
1. Some of the trade journals INFORM reviewed are:
Transportation and Distribution; Modern Materials
Engineering; Modern Materials Handling; Packag-
ing Magazine; Packaging Digest; Plastics News;
Beverage Industry; Beverage World; Resource Re-
cycling.
2. Switching to reusable shipping containers may not
lead to immediate savings in these areas. This is dis-
cussed in greater detail later in this report.
3. In New York City, resistance from a baking
companys trucking union has prevented the bakery
from implementing a deposit system for tracking and
controlling containers that are not returned immedi-
ately to the production facility. Letter from John
Okun, director, Waste Reduction and Recycling, Long
Island City Business Development Corporation, June
21, 1994.
4. The Cost to Recycle at a Materials Recovery Facil-
ity, National Solid Waste Management Association,
Washington, DC, October 1992.
5. 1972 figures: Franklin Associates, Analysis of Trends
in Municipal Solid Waste Generation, 1972 to 1987:
Final Report, prepared for Procter&Gamble, Brown-
ing Ferris Industries, General Mills, and Sears, Janu-
ary 1992; 1993 figures: Fibre Box Association, 1993
Annual Report, and Steve Apotheker OCC Shines
in All-Star Recycling Role, Resource Recycling,
February 1994.
6. International Design Guidelines for IBM Packaging
Engineers, International Business Machines Corpo-
ration, Research Triangle Park, NC, 1990.
7. This report does not explore alternatives to single-
use pallets, which comprise a significant portion of
the waste stream.
8. 250 is a reasonable expectation, according to the
manufacturers of some reusable shipping containers.
9. The hypothetical examples in Table 1 do not take into
account the huge range of box types, sizes, and ship-
ping requirements of containers in general use. Nor
do they take into account the cradle-to-grave envi-
ronmental effects of the entire life-cycle of shipping
containers, including extracting raw materials, pro-
cessing, and manufacturing.
10. Charles W. Ebling, Integrated Packaging Systemsfor
Transportation and Distribution, Marcel Dekker Inc.,
New York, NY, 1990.
11. Walter F. Friedman and Jerome J. Kipnees, Distribu-
tion Packaging, Robert E. Krieger Publishing Com-
pany, Inc., Malabar, Florida, 1977.
12. It is conceivable that a single-use container could be
developed that would be collapsible, nestable, and
stackable, but the cost of producing such a container
for a single use would likely be prohibitive.
13. Draft article by Lawrence Dronek, marketing com-
munications manager of LEWISystems, for Modern
Materials Handling, April 21, 1992.
14. Larry Beck, Drug Company Prescribes Returnable
Shipping Totes, Modern Materials Handling, Feb-
ruary 1989, pp. 76-77.
15. Dan Milojevich, director of support services, In-N-
Out Burger (Baldwin Park, California) at $eeing
Green workshop on business waste prevention, spon-
sored by US Environmental Protection Agency and
INFORM, Los Angeles, California, June 8, 1993.
16. INFORM met with Joe M. Oates, Jr., national sales
manager for custom products, and Kara M. Balmer,
marketing coordinator at Perstorp Xytec in Tacoma,
Washington, on September 9, 1991.
17. INFORM visited Xeroxs Webster, New York, facility
on December 7 and 8, 1992, and met with Robert R.
Vannozzi, packaging commodity team contracting
specialist, and James E. Baxter, Jr., manager of tech-
nical services. INFORM also visited H.P. Neun Com-
pany, Inc. in Fairport, New York, a private manufac-
turer of corrugated and set-up boxes that is also a
third-party contractor that distributes Xeroxs reus-
able shipping containers to Xeroxs suppliers. INFORM
met with Neuns president, James E. Woods, on De-
cember 7, 1992.
18. The Market, New York State Department of Eco-
nomic Development, Office of Recycling Market De-
velopment, December 1991, Albany, New York.
19. Supplier Packaging Program (training material for
Xerox suppliers), Xerox Corp., Webster, New York.
20. James E. Woods, president, H.P. Neun, plant visit,
Fairport, New York, December 7, 1992.
21. Other sources have indicated greater savings, but ac-
cording to Baxter, those figures may include a num-
ber of indirect cost reductions that are harder to quan-
tify. According to Benchmark, a quarterly publication
for Xerox customers, Xerox estimated in 1991 that
the new packaging program, when fully implemented,
would save the company $20 million per year.
(Benchmark, Summer 1991, p. 6, El Segundo, Cali-
fornia.) The Corporate Environmental Solutions
Project at Stanford reported in 1991 that over a five-
year period, Xeroxs $8 million investment to develop
the program was expected to generate $80 million in
savings. (Corporate Environmental Solutions Project:
25
 Independent Study Project, Professor Robert
Augsburger, faculty advisor, Stanford Graduate
School of Business, Stanford, California, June 10,
1991.)
22. The Market, New York State Department of Eco-
nomic Development, Office of Recycling Market De-
velopment, December 1991, Albany, New York.
23. INFORM visited Toyota USAs plant in Georgetown,
Kentucky, on June 4, 1992, and met with David R.
McCulloch, specialist in production logistics control.
Additional information on Toyota USA came from
an April 21, 1992, draft article by Lawrence Dronek
of LEWISystems for Modern Materials Handling.
24. Dronek, op. cit.
25. Letter from John Okun, director, Waste Reduction
and Recycling, Long Island City Business Develop-
ment Corporation, June 21, 1994.
26. Ibid.
27. Steve Apotheker, OCC Tomorrow and OCC Yester-
day -But What About Today? Resource Recycling,
March 1993.
28. Ibid.
29. Apotheker, Resource Recycling, Feb. 1994, op. cit.
30. Ibid.
31. Franklin Associates, op. cit.
32. Stone Container, the largest producer of container
board in the United States, planned to test recyclable
waxed containers in 1994; Apotheker, Resource Re-
cycling, Feb. 1994, op. cit.
33. Spencer Hoopes, president and CEO, Perstorp Xytec,
cited in Shipping Container Markets Slow Growth,
Bill Bregar, Plastics News, August 19, 1991.
34. Interview with Mike Reilly, manager of environmen-
tal, consumer and corporate affairs, Wakefern, Eliza-
beth, New Jersey, October 26, 1992.
35. Interview with Stewarts Processing Corp. president
William Dake, vice-president and dairy manager Gary
Dake, vice-president of plant operations Richard
Dunn, and public affairs director Susan Law Dake at
Stewarts headquarters, Saratoga Springs, New York,
December 4, 1991.
26
36. Interview with S.P. (Sal) Porrazzo, director of envi-
ronmental affairs, Pepsi-Cola, Somers, New York,
May 28, 1992.
37. Porrazzo interview (above).
38. Linda B. Smith, manager of environmental affairs,
H. E. Butt Grocery Company, written communica-
tion, June 27, 1994.
39. Reilly interview (above).
40. Telephone interview, Ted Brown, environmental af-
fairs and promotions manager, Hannaford Brothers,
September 16, 1992.
41. Telephone interview, Tim Bernthal, program devel-
oper, Puget Consumers Co-op, July 7, 1992, and
Produce Waste Reduction Project: Final Report,
Tim Bernthal, Seattle, Washington, January 7, 1993.
42. Bernthal interview (above).
43. Bernthal, Produce Waste Reduction Project, op. cit.
44. PCC estimated that the break-even point for the
grower was three-and-a-half months. PCCs estimate
assumed a $7,800 one-year loan at 12 percent inter-
est; $1.50 to buy each waxed cardboard container;
$13 to buy each reusable container, which could be
used continually over a five-year period; shipments
of 400 cases per week over a four-month growing
season; a 3 percent rate of loss and a 3 percent rate
of breakage per year. PCC also assumed that it would
need a starting float of one-and-a-half times as many
containers as were shipped each week. Bernthal, Pro-
duce Waste Reduction Project, op. cit.
45. Brown interview (above).
46. Interview with James A. Badami, president, Doms
Empty Package Supply, New Paltz, New York, Oc-
tober 19, 1993.
47. Bette K. Fishbein, Germany, Garbage, and the Green
Dot: Challenging the Throwaway Society, INFORM,
New York, NY, 1994.
48. Interview with Peter B. Zaboji, president and chief
executive officer, Schoeller International Group,
April 13,1994 at INFORM'S office in New York, NY.
49. Transport Packaging and the Environment 1993:
State Recycling Laws Update, Raymond Commu-
nications, Riverdale, Maryland, September 1993.
Company Contacts

Doms Empty Package Supply, Inc. Perstorp Xytec Inc.

87 So. Ohioville Road P.O. Box 99057
New Paltz, NY 12561 Tacoma, Washington 98499
Contact: James A Badami, President Contact: Ron Springer, National Sales Manager
Phone: (914) 883-6757 Phone: (800) 423-3221

H.P. Neun Co., Inc. Puget Consumers Co-op

75 North Main Street 4201 Roosevelt Way N.E.
Fairport, New York 14450 Seattle, Washington 98 105
Contact: James E. Woods, President Contact: Tim Bernthal, Program Developer
Phone: (716) 388-1360 Phone: (206) 547- 1222

H.E. Butt Grocery Company Schoeller International Group

4839 Space Center Drive Heilmannstrasse 1
San Antonio, Texas 78218 81479 Munich, Germany
Contact: Linda B. Smith, Manager of Contact: Peter B. Zaboji, President and Chief
Environmental Affairs Executive Officer
Phone: (210) 662-5414 Phone: 01l-49-89-79 20 35

LEWISystems Wakefern Food Corporation

128 Hospital Drive 33 Northtield Avenue
PO Box 508 Edison, New Jersey 08818
Watertown, Wisconsin 53094-0508 Contact: Michael Reilly, Manager of
Contact: Mike Curran Environmental, Consumer and Corporate Affairs
Phone: (414) 262-5000 Phone: (908) 906-5929

Long Island City Development Corporation

29- 11 Queens Plaza North
Long Island City, New York 11101
Contact: John Okun, Director of Waste Reduction
and Recycling
Phone: (718) 786-5300

27
About the Author

David Saphire is a research associate in INFORM'S Sustainable Products and Practices Program, where he investigates
municipal, institutional, and business waste prevention initiatives. He has presented workshops and testimony on waste
prevention for solid waste planners, government officials, citizens groups, and business executives.
He is co-author of INFORM'S landmark report, Burning Garbage in the US: Practice vs. State of the Art, and is the
author of Case Reopened: Reassessing Refillable Bottles, which analyzes the opportunities and obstacles for reducing
the environmental impact of packaging by refilling beverage bottles.
Mr. Saphire received a B.A. in environmental studies from the State University of New York at Binghamton. He has
been a researcher at INFORM since 1989.

28
Publications and Membership Cutting Chemical Wastes: What 29 Organic Chemical
Plants Are Doing to Reduce Hazardous Wastes (David J.
Sarokin, Warren R. Muir, Ph.D., Catherine G. Miller,
Sustainable Products and Practices: Ph.D., and Sebastian R. Sperber), 1986,548 pp., $47.50.
Selected Publications
Case Reopened: Reassessing Refillable Bottles (David
Saphire), 1994, $25. Energy and Air Quality
Germany, Garbage, and the Green Dot: Challenging the Paving the Way to Natural Gas Vehicles (James S. Can-
Throwaway Society (Bette K. Fishbein), 1994, 216 pp., non), 1993, 192 pp., $25.
$25.
Making Less Garbage: A Planning Guide for Communi- Other INFORM Publications
ties (Bette K. Fishbein and Caroline Gelb), 1993, 192
pp., $30. For a complete publications list, including materials on
land and water conservation and a quarterly newsletter,
Business Recycling Manual (copublished with Recourse or for more information, call or write to INFORM.
Systems, Inc.), 1991, 202 pp., $42.50.
Burning Garbage in the US: Practice vs. State of the Art
(Marjorie J. Clarke, Maarten de Kadt, Ph.D., and David
Saphire), 1991,288 pp., $47. Sales Information
Reducing Office Paper Waste (Robert Graff and Bette
Fishbein), 1991, 28 pp., $15.
Payment
Garbage Management in Japan: Leading the Way (Allen
Hershkowitz, Ph.D., and Eugene Salerni, Ph.D.), 1987, Payment, including shipping and handling charges, must
152 pp., $5. be made in US funds drawn on a US bank and must ac-
company all orders. Please make checks payable to
INFORM and mail to:
Chemical Hazards Prevention: INFORM, Inc.
Selected Publications 120 Wall Street
New York, NY 10005-4001
Stirring Up Innovation: Environmental Improvements in
Paints and Adhesives (John Young, Linda Ambrose, and Please include a street address; UPS cannot deliver to a
Lois Lobo) 1994, 128 pp., $25. box number
Preventing Industrial Toxic Hazards: A Guide for Com-
munities (Marian Wise and Lauren Kenworthy), 1993, Shipping Fees
208 pp., $25. United States: Add $3 for first book + $1 for each
Environmental Dividends: Cutting More Chemical additional book. (4th class delivery;
Wastes (Mark H. Dorfman, Warren R. Muir, Ph.D., and allow 4-6 weeks)
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Tackling Toxics in Everyday Products: A Directory of additional book.
Organizations (Nancy Lilienthal, Michele Ascione, and Foreign/surface: Add $8 for first book +$4 each
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Toward a More Informed Public: Recommendations for Foreign/airmail: Add $20 for first book + $10
Improving the Toxics Release Inventory (Jacqueline B. each additional book.
Courteau and Nancy Lilienthal), 1991, 26 pp., $10.
Outside the US: Allow additional shipping time.
Preventing Pollution Through Technical Assistance: One
States Experience (Mark H. Dorfman and John Riggio), Priority shipping is higher; please call for charges.
1990, 72 pp., $15. (more...)

29
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INFORM Board of Directors

Charles A. Moran, Chair Kenneth F. Mountcastle, Jr.

President Senior Vice President
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 INFORM
Of all the reports I have read on packaging over the years, I can honestly say I learned the most from this
one. Delivering the Goods is a timely, thorough, and thoroughly readable examination of reuse potential in
an often overlooked packaging category. It provides a balanced review of reusable shipping container sys-
tems, their appropriateness for certain businesses and manufacturers, and their economic benefits.

Janet Matthews
Program Director
New York State Legislative Commission on Solid Waste Management

Delivering the Goods is a comprehensive report which provides an industry perspective and a good over-
view of the promise and challenges of employing reusable shipping containers. Case studies and and ex-
amples from leading businesses complement the industry perspective.

Abhay Bhushan
Manager, Environmental Leadership Programs
Xerox Corporation

Reusable shipping containers have the potential to significantly reduce muncipal solid waste generation.
INFORMs report provides an excellent overview of the environmental and economic benefits of reusable
shipping containers and offers practical advice to companies interested in using these containers.

Edgar Miller
Director of Policy and Programs
National Recycling Coalition